The Unique Power of Reading, Part 1

Most people in the world can read. About 98% of Americans are literate to some extent. Heck, you’re doing it right now! Unless you just came to look at the pictures. And if you say, “yes, I’m just here for the pictures,” then AHA! Caught you! You had to read that statement to agree with it. So, admit it: you read. Along with the vast majority of the people around you. Which means, like many of us, you probably take the fact you read for granted. Like many, myself included, you pick up a book, a magazine, turn on the internet (I know you don’t turn on the internet… it’s just there, like radio and bacteria…) and take in the words in front of you.

But have you thought about what you’re doing? Really thought about? Let’s do that for a moment.

What does it mean to read? Reading is the receiving end of an act of communication. Someone, somewhere, somewhen wrote something to entertain you, or to inform you, or to make you think. You read it, and, as a result, you are entertained, informed, or thinking about what was written. No other species on the planet can do that, which means you and I are very, very special. There are 8.7 million species on the planet (according to The Internet), but ours is the only one that reads. Sure, birds can sing to each other, and skunks stink love messages. But when was the last time a skunk captured their smell to send to their hottie? Birds don’t make mp3s of their music. And cats don’t send each other hate mail…

We humans have a complex variety of communication methods, most popularly using words (not discounting body language, sign language, and emojis). With these words we make each other laugh, express the deepest longings of our souls, sass each other, educate each other, and tell stories. We like that last one especially. And from Egyptian walls to parchment to the printing press, we’ve taken time to capture those words and ideas for posterity. Which means, I don’t have to summon H.G. Wells from the dead to hear his story about the Martians invading London. Or do I? Because when I open this book…

… and start reading:

“No-one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own…”

H.G. Wells is speaking to me from the grave. His words from 119 years ago are alive in my head as I read them. The same pictures he painted in the minds of his Victorian audience begin to form in my mind. Wells’s body may be long gone from this earth, but his voice lives whenever I pick up and read his work.

Reading has the power to bring the dead to life!

Consider that next time you read a book by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, or Ian Fleming. They are still telling you their stories, even though their physical voices have been silenced. When you read their words, it’s as if they are sitting right there with you, speaking to you. Entertaining you. Informing you. Making you think.

More on the power of reading in the next post. Stay tuned!  🙂